Supercritical fluid material finishing

Abstract

Methods are directed to the use of a supercritical fluid for finishing a target material with a finishing material. One or more variables selected from temperature, pressure, flow rate, and time are manipulated to increase efficiencies in the finishing process. As temperature or pressure are decreased causing a change in the density of a supercritical fluid carbon dioxide, which in turn causes a precipitation of dissolved material finish with the carbon dioxide, other variables are maintained above threshold values to increase the uptake of the material finish by the target material. This improvement reduces time by limiting cleaning processes of the system, saves materials used in the cleaning process, and saves energy used to achieve cycles of the process, in aspects.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional applications: 1) U.S. Provisional Patent Application 62 / 119,015, entitled Dyeing of Spooled Material with a Supercritical Fluid, filed on Feb. 20, 2015, 2) U.S. Provisional Patent Application 62 / 119,010 entitled Equilibrium Dyeing of Rolled Material with a Supercritical Fluid, filed on Feb. 20, 2015, 3) U.S. Provisional Patent Application 62 / 135,680, entitled Supercritical Fluid Treatment Process Variable Manipulation, filed on Mar. 19, 2015, and 4) U.S. Provisional Patent Application 62 / 296,980, entitled Supercritical Fluid Material Finishing, filed on Feb. 18, 2016. The entireties of the aforementioned applications are incorporated by reference herein.TECHNICAL FIELD[0002]Processing, dyeing, and treating of materials, such as fabric and or a yarn, with a supercritical fluid.BACKGROUND[0003]Traditional dyeing of materials relies on a large quantity of water, which can be detrimental...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0004]Methods are directed to finishing a target material with a material finish in a supercritical fluid carbon dioxide environment. Variables of the process are manipulated in different sequences to achieve a more efficient transfer of the material finish to the target material. The variables include, time, pressure, heat, internal flow rate, and CO2

Problems solved by technology

Traditional dyeing of materials relies on a large quantity of water, which can be detrimental to the fresh water supply and also result in undesired chemicals entering into the wastewater stream.

However, a number of challenges have been encountered with the use of a supercritical fluid (“SCF”), such as carbon dioxide (“CO2”), in a dyeing process.

For example, the interaction of dye materials with a SCF, incl

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